Fresh Beer Fulujia, wading across the river by feeling the Mixue Bingcheng

As the World Cup officially kicks off, the beer industry has also entered its dividend period.

Right at this time, Xianpi Fuluji officially announced that the number of its stores has exceeded 3,000. In December last year, Mixue Group (2097.HK) officially completed the acquisition of Xianpi Fuluji. In just half a year, the number of Xianpi Fuluji's stores has doubled.

As the "Mixue Bingcheng" in the on-tap beer industry, Xianpi Fuluji suggests choosing locations with dense mature communities and a catering business proportion of over 50% when selecting store sites.

This also means that Xianpi Fuluji not only does not abandon the sales scenarios where traditional beer is bound to catering businesses such as barbecue stalls and hot pot restaurants, but also suits consumers who want to buy beer and enjoy it at home, becoming an important supplement to Mixue Bingcheng's "Morning Coffee, Evening Alcohol" segment.

Just as Mixue Bingcheng and Xingyunkaka have "lowered" the prices of tea drinks and coffee, Xianpi Fuluji has also brought the price of on-tap fresh beer down to 5.9 yuan per jin. In the group-buying channel, three cups only cost 12.9 yuan. Such pricing has allowed Xianpi Fuluji to quickly take root in various regions across the country, just like Mixue Bingcheng.

The investment promotion manual of Xianpi Fuluji mentions that data from Shangpu Consulting Group shows that Xianpi Fuluji is already the brand with the largest number of fresh beer chain stores in China.

Chen Zhiqiang, the founder of the Ten-Thousand-Store Profitability Think Tank, mentioned in an interview that the gene of Mixue Bingcheng is to offer high-quality and affordable delicacies, that is, "drink well for one dollar, eat full for two dollars, and eat and drink well for three dollars", focusing on the price range below ten yuan.

To ensure profitability with products of extremely high cost-performance, an efficient supply chain is required. Under such a cycle, Mixue Group has still maintained a growth of over 30% in both revenue and profit from now until 2025.

Xianpi Fuluji is replicating the path that Mixue Bingcheng has taken.

01

The growth rate of the new tea drink industry has slowed down and has entered a stage of stock competition. Tea drink players have started to look for a second growth curve.

Before 2022, the new tea drink industry had always maintained a compound growth rate of over 20%. However, in recent years, the growth rate of the new tea drink industry has not only declined year by year but has also dropped to single digits. According to data from iiMedia Research, the growth rates of the new tea drink industry in 2024 and 2025 are 6.4% and 5.7% respectively.

Looking at major new tea drink brands specifically, the growth rates of both revenue and the number of stores have slowed down, and there have even been cases of negative growth. Among the six listed tea drink brands in 2025, Guming had the largest growth in both revenue and the number of stores, with revenue increasing by 46.9% year-on-year and the number of stores increasing by 36.7% year-on-year. However, for Nayuki, both of these data showed negative growth, with a year-on-year decrease of 12% and 8.45% respectively.

Facing growth anxiety, tea drink brands have made different choices.

For example, they have accelerated the pace of "introducing new products" to adapt to market changes. Hushang Ayi launched 213 new products in 2025, Cha Baidao launched 117 new tea drink products and upgraded and iterated 25 products, Guming launched 106 new products, and Mixue Bingcheng also launched multiple drinks in the taro ice cream, blueberry, green grape, and apple series.

Another example is the launch of bottled tea drinks in an attempt to gain a share of the ready-to-drink market. Guming launched two bottled products, apple juice and kale fruit and vegetable juice, last year, priced at 7.9 yuan and 9.9 yuan respectively. Even earlier, Xicha and Nayuki had already put their bottled drinks on supermarket shelves, but their performance was not satisfactory. Taking Nayuki as an example, the revenue from bottled drinks last year only accounted for 4.1% and decreased by 39% year-on-year.

Of course, there is also another approach, which is to develop new business lines. The most typical example is Xingyunkaka launched by Mixue Bingcheng. Mixue Bingcheng replicated its successful experience in the coffee market and continued its strategy of deepening the sinking market. That is, it concentrated its stores in cities and towns below the third tier and brought the price down to 6.6 yuan, successfully seizing the "town coffee" market.

The brand introduction on the official website of Xingyunkaka shows that in 2024, the number of its stores exceeded 4,500. By November 2025, the number of its stores exceeded 10,000, successfully becoming a member of the Ten-Thousand-Store Club.

Although Mixue Group's revenue and profit have maintained a growth trend in recent years, the growth rate has declined. For example, looking at the annual profit data, the year-on-year growth rates in the past three years were 58%, 40%, and 33% respectively. Looking at the change in the number of stores, although the number of Mixue Group's stores increased by more than 13,000 in 2025, nearly half of the store growth was supported by Xingyunkaka.

This has made Mixue anxious to "repair the roof while it's sunny". Its choice is to replicate another "town beer" in the fresh beer segment.

In October last year, Mixue Group issued an announcement on the acquisition of Xianpi Fuluji. The announcement mentioned that as of August 31 last year, Xianpi Fuluji had about 1,200 stores. The 2025 annual report of Mixue Group mentioned that as of December 1 last year, the day when the strategic acquisition was officially completed, Xianpi Fuluji had 1,354 stores.

Before being labeled as the "Mixue Bingcheng" in the fresh beer industry, Xianpi Fuluji took three months to expand by 150 stores, but now it only takes one or two weeks.

This expansion speed is almost comparable to that of Mixue Bingcheng during its high-growth period.

02

Just as Mixue Bingcheng uses Xingyunkaka to meet the demand for coffee drinks in the sinking market, Xianpi Fuluji is an important piece for Mixue Bingcheng to meet the demand for alcoholic drinks in the sinking market.

The reason why Mixue Bingcheng chooses to enter this market with on-tap fresh beer is actually not difficult to understand.

Firstly, the gross profit margin of the beer industry is very high, even higher than that of the tea drink industry where Mixue Bingcheng belongs.

It can be seen from the financial reports that in 2025, the gross profit margin of CR Beer was 43%, that of Tsingtao Beer was 41.72%, while the gross profit margin of Mixue Group was only 29.9%. When the on-tap fresh beer business expands to a certain scale, it is expected to increase the overall gross profit margin of Mixue Group.

Moreover, compared with the slowdown in the growth rate of the tea drink industry, the craft beer market is still in a stage of rapid growth. The "2026 China Beer Industry Report" shows that from 2019 to 2024, the market size of craft beer increased from 12.5 billion to 63.2 billion, achieving an annual compound growth rate of 38.4%.

The report also predicts that from 2024 to 2029, craft beer will still maintain a high-speed growth of 23.6%. By 2029, the market size of craft beer is expected to reach 182.1 billion yuan, and its proportion in the overall beer market will jump from the current 2.1% to 19.6%.

Secondly, the business threshold is low, which is very important for brands that expand through franchising.

The franchise policy released by the cooperation center of Xianpi Fuluji shows that starting from June 1, there will be a preferential policy of waiving franchise fees and management fees for new and old franchisees. For new franchisees, the franchise fees will be waived for three years and the management fees for the first quarter of each year will be waived.

In this way, without calculating rent and decoration costs, the total cost for new franchisees, including franchise fees, contract deposits, management fees, training fees, promotion fees, equipment, and the first batch of goods, is only about 75,000 yuan. If it is a fresh beer dispensing station, the total cost is only 56,800 yuan.

In contrast, after excluding the store decoration costs, the franchise fee of Mixue Bingcheng is about 150,000 yuan.

Moreover, the low business threshold is not only reflected in the franchise cost. Take the monthly limited store type, the fresh beer dispensing station, as an example. Whether it is a husband-and-wife business or an individual entrepreneur, they can quickly enter the market. And different from tea drinks and coffee, which require preparation, fresh beer is very easy to operate. You just need to know how to open the tap to dispense beer. Even for other standard store types, hiring two employees can ensure normal operation.

Thirdly, fresh beer can cover a group of people that tea drinks and coffee cannot.

Data from iiMedia Research shows that among Chinese consumers of new-style tea drinks, female consumers account for 60.4%, male consumers account for 39.6%, and consumers aged 22 - 30 account for 62.4%. The coffee consumption group is also mainly composed of females, accounting for 62%, and consumers aged 27 - 39 account for 60%.

According to the "2025 Beer Industry Trend Insight Report" by Yien Data, among beer consumers, males account for 55.9%, and consumers aged 35 - 44 and over 44 account for more than 60%.

This also means that if Mixue Bingcheng can replicate the scale of ten thousand stores through Fuluji, it can almost cover all age groups in the sinking market.

03

It took Mixue Bingcheng 23 years to achieve the goal of ten thousand stores, while it only took Xingyunkaka 8 years. Judging from the current growth rate, the path to ten thousand stores for Xianpi Fuluji may be even shorter.

On the surface, the key to Xianpi Fuluji's goal of ten thousand stores lies in attracting enough franchisees, but behind it, the support of a mature supply chain is even more indispensable. Relying on Mixue Bingcheng's supply chain, Xianpi Fuluji will surely achieve twice the result with half the effort in running through the ten-thousand-store model.

A reference case is Xingyunkaka. When the freshly ground coffee industry was still in a price war at 9.9 yuan, Xingyunkaka directly announced the start of the 6.6-yuan era. What supported Xingyunkaka to stand out in this price war was not burning money and involution, but the scale effect of Mixue Bingcheng's supply chain, which allowed Xingyunkaka to redefine the freshly ground coffee market with its cost advantage.

It was from then on that the development speed of Xingyunkaka took off. It took Xingyunkaka seven years to open the first 5,000 stores, and less than a year to open the next 5,000 stores.

Looking at the product catalog of Xianpi Fuluji, its products include not only regular craft beer but also fruit beer, tea beer, milk beer, and non-alcoholic fruit-flavored bubble drinks. This means that it has to deal with more complex suppliers.

For example, the lemons, strawberries, and pineapples needed for fruit beer come from different regions such as Yunnan, Dandong, and Guangxi respectively.

Moreover, Mixue Group also mentioned in its annual report that Xianpi Fuluji adopts a continuous low-price strategy, which means that Xianpi Fuluji will continue to deepen its presence in the sinking market. Considering that currently, the proportion of Mixue Group's stores in cities below the third tier is as high as 57.4%, the dispersion of stores can be imagined. Craft fresh beer also has the need for cold chain distribution, which requires low-temperature transportation at 0 - 8°C to lock in freshness and deliver to stores. This poses a very high test to the logistics and distribution system.

The relevant announcement released by Mixue Group shows that in 2023, Xianpi Fuluji had a loss of 1.5277 million yuan, and in 2024, it turned a profit of 1.0709 million yuan. Calculated based on Mixue Group's subscription of 51% of the equity of Xianpi Fuluji for 285.6 million yuan, the post-investment valuation of Xianpi Fuluji is as high as 560 million yuan. Such a huge difference between the two data has also led to many doubts from the outside world about this transaction.

It is not difficult to see that even before this transaction, Xianpi Fuluji already had 1,200 stores. However, due to industry problems such as high transportation costs and high loss rates of fresh beer, the profitability of Xianpi Fuluji is indeed very limited. Mixue Group still has to make great efforts to "recoup its investment" in a short time.

In the announcement, it is stated that relying on Mixue Group's powerful supply chain system, both parties can give full play to their synergistic advantages in procurement, production, logistics, R & D, quality control, etc., and further enhance the product strength and cost advantage of Xianpi Fuluji.

Data from Kaiyuan Securities shows that after the integration of the supply chain system, the overall production cost of Fuluji has been reduced by 15% - 20% compared with the industry average level, and the transportation loss rate has been reduced from the industry average of 8% to within 3%. Relying on the advantage of centralized procurement, the procurement cost of raw materials such as malt and hops has decreased by 18%, and the overall terminal loss rate of Fuluji is lower than the industry average level.

For Mixue Group, which operates with an extremely efficient supply chain, changes in cost will be immediately reflected in the profit. Although Mixue Group achieved double growth in revenue and profit last year, its gross profit margin fell below 30%. Mixue Group explained in its financial report that this was mainly due to changes in the revenue structure and an increase in the procurement cost of several raw materials.

On the other hand, industry leaders in the beer industry, such as Budweiser and Tsingtao, are also deploying in the craft beer segment. If Mixue Group wants to replicate another Mixue Bingcheng, it will inevitably have to compete with these established players.

It is worth noting that according to the information displayed on Meituan Takeaway, the price of Xianpi Fuluji's fruit beer is 44.3 yuan for 3 jin. In comparison, it does not have an advantage over the prices of traditional established beer manufacturers. For example, the price of fruit beer in Tsingtao Beer's craft beer store is 42 yuan per 1.5 liters.

This may be a new issue that Mixue Group needs to face after breaking through the tea drink industry. In the tea drink industry, Mixue has an unparalleled scale and a crushing supply chain advantage. At the same time, because the industry is very new, it is easy to accumulate brand potential. However, the beer industry has a long history and many established players. If it really comes to a cost war and a brand war, Mixue may not have a high chance of winning.

This is a path that Mixue Bingcheng has never taken, and it is up to Xianpi Fuluji to explore it.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zuihua FunTalk" (ID: iFuntalker), written by the Zuihua team and published by 36Kr